Cisco and Wipro announce strategic alliance

Under the agreement, Cisco and Wipro together will build new IT infrastructure service solutions that combine Cisco’s industry-leading networking solutions with Wipro’s infrastructure and managed services portfolio.

The companies also announced the establishment of the Cisco Solution Centre at the Wipro Campus in Bangalore, which will develop and showcase new services and solutions, such as Cisco Unified Communications, that will take advantage of the network platform to help enterprise customers drive innovation and business growth.

“Over the years, Wipro, with its expert system integration services, and Cisco, with its industry-leading products, have partnered to add value to HDFC Bank’s network strategy. Working with these two world-class organizations has been a great experience,” said Aditya Puri, Managing Director, HDFC Bank Ltd.

Under the agreement, Cisco and Wipro will jointly develop and deliver new solutions that incorporate their intelligent-networking technology and unmatched services in business processes and IT.

Wipro will offer solutions based on Cisco products and services on a global basis, with initial focus in India, Middle East and Africa.

Cisco will also become the preferred networking partner for Wipro’s portfolio of services, including outsourcing, managed-services and other solutions.

Wipro will invest in developing competencies in Cisco’s leading-edge products and services through its Cisco Solution Centre.

“Wipro is a global leader in the industry for delivering IT services to enterprises and is implementing IT innovation that helps businesses achieve new levels of productivity,” said Wim Elfrink, chief globalization officer of Cisco.

“This strategic alliance illustrates Cisco commitment to building relationships with new partners in emerging parts of the world that will take advantage of new virtualised approaches such as ’software as a service,’ and service-oriented network architectures,” he added.

The companies will provide joint services and solutions that take advantage of the network as a platform.

The joint offerings will incorporate Cisco’s advanced technologies for such areas as application networking services, data centre, security, telepresence, and unified communications, with Wipro’s industry-leading IT global service and business process models that help customers maximize their business performance.

In the future, Cisco and Wipro will work collaborate to develop innovative solutions that support specific vertical industry models such as health care, financial services, retail, real estate and transportation.

“The pervasiveness and intelligence of the network is the key to driving IT innovation,” said Suresh Vaswani, president of Wipro Infotech.

“This alliance brings together Cisco’s industry-leading network solutions and Wipro’s vertical expertise, quality standards and global presence to deliver innovative new solutions to our customers. We are excited by the possibility of combining the strengths of Cisco and Wipro to deliver unique value to our customers,” he added.

Now that Cisco is the global network platform and networking solutions partner for Wipro, Cisco is able to expand on its worldwide market leadership.

Additionally, Cisco will be able to take advantage of Wipro’s world class services and business process re-engineering expertise to seize new growth opportunities in the areas of remote services delivery.

“Wipro offers a unique approach for delivering service solutions based on infrastructure and combined with Cisco’s innovation in making the network the platform we know we will help meet customers’ needs around the world,” said Steve Steinhilber, vice president of strategic alliances for Cisco.

“We are looking forward to working with Wipro to help us expand both our business opportunities in the high-growth emerging markets and the innovation it can bring to address unique customer requirements in those markets,” he added.

The Cisco Solution Centre at the Wipro Campus in Bangalore is scheduled to be functional in November and will expedite the development of network-based IT solutions, test frameworks, and illustrate proof of concepts and IT and networking methodologies for client-specific business processes. (ANI)